THE MAN WHO WAS SATURDAY

by Derek Lambert ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 29, 1985

After two WW II ""factions"" (The Golden Express, The Judas Code), veteran British thriller-man Lambert returns to the contemporary spy scene--with a spottily plotted, agreeably jumpy tale of a US traitor trying to get home from Russia to America. Robert Calder, recruited by the KGB while at Harvard in the Vietnam-bitter 1960s, spied for the USSR during his Washington, D.C., law career--and defected to Moscow, abandoning his family, when he was unmasked as a mole. Now, however, after five years in Russia, Calder is more than a little disenchanted. Several fellow defectors have met with suspicious sudden deaths; worse yet, Calder himself is being followed, shot at, poisoned, etc. Could he be marked for death by the tidy KGB? He could indeed--especially since he Knows Too Much: yes, Calder--rather implausibly--knows the identities of six KGB mega-moles in the West! What he doesn't know, however, is the identity of the seventh super-mole--code-named ""Saturday."" So, when Calder then hears that his little son is critically ill back home in Boston, it's the last straw: he decides to flee from the USSR--despite his growing love for feminist Katerina, a reluctant KGB lackey. And the second half of this disjointed novel becomes a series of escape/chase sequences: Calder takes a roundabout route to Siberia (via steamboat, truck, train), aided by a US agent (who wants those mega-mole names) but pursued by two lethal KGB villains; he hides out near Lake Baikal with Katerina's zesty pals but loses a leg after an icy shootout/ordeal; and the finale is Calder's attempt to reach the USSR/China border--which involves bridge sabotage, a Buddhist-monastery rendezvous. . .plus the not-very-surprising appearance of super-mod ""Saturday."" Throughout, in fact, Lambert doesn't make the ""Saturday"" subplot sufficiently relevant or suspenseful. Nor is the dilemma of traitor/hero Calder--potentially riveting material--adequately developed. Still, if this spy-pursuit drama remains a creaky hodgepodge of familiar plot-lets, it's undeniably lively--with varied action/violence, a few intriguing sidelights (e.g., Moscow's sad little international-defector community), and a broad range of sketched-in scenic effects.

Pub Date: July 29, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Stein & Day

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1985

Categories: FICTION